Town Square

Bill to fund high-speed rail hangs in the balance

Original post made
on Jul 5, 2012

With residents preparing for holiday celebrations Tuesday night, lawmakers in Sacramento released in the closing hours of July 3 a much-anticipated bill for funding the largest transportation project in California's history.

Posted by Steve Ly
a resident of another community
on Jul 5, 2012 at 2:15 pm

The high speed rail project has devolved into the most horrible example of bait-and-switch I've ever seen. The Legislative Analysts Office, the State Auditor and UC Berkeley's ITS have all raised legitimate concerns that CHSRA has not answered. Shame on Governor Moonbeam for ramming this through on short notice during a holiday week. If it passes, I'll definitely vote "no" on Jerry's tax increase.

Posted by Menlo Voter
a resident of Menlo Park: other
on Jul 5, 2012 at 9:26 pm

I'm not too inclined to vote for a tax increase in teh first place, but I guarantee, if the legislature passes HSR, I will absolutley vote NO. If we can't afford to fund our schools, we sure as hell can't build the HSR boondoggle.

I urge voters to pay attention to which legislators vote for HSR. THOSE are your bought and paid for union lackeys.

Rich Gordon and Jerry Hill should be run out of town. Rich Gordon is running for Assembly. I urge everyone to vote for his opponent even if he is a Republican. This fiscal insanity must cease.

Also Gordon is the one who gave us the bulb out on Alameda de las Pulgas and Avy. This cause many people to divert from Alaeda de las Pulgas to Altshul putting many children in danger. Rich Gordon does not have one iota of common sense.

While Menlo Park residents can't do anything about Jerry Hill we sure can do something about Rich Gordon. This irresponsible Assemblyman needs to be voted out of office.

Posted by Peter Carpenter
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Jul 6, 2012 at 11:03 amPeter Carpenter is a registered user.

From the Economist:

This week the Committee of Public Accounts published its report on the completion and sale of high speed one (HS1), Britain's only super-speedy rail link, which runs between London and Folkestone to the channel tunnel.

The report concluded that the line will cost taxpayers £4.8 billion; it predicted that the final bill could be double that sum by 2070. The members of the committee concluded that forecasting models and assumptions about the number of passengers who would use the line-and the sums they would be willing to pay-were partly responsible.

"In an overture to Peninsula critics, the bill specifies that the project would be "consistent with the blended strategy" that the rail authority identified in its April business plan. The strategy, which calls for high-speed rail and Caltrain to share two tracks between San Jose and San Francisco, is widely seen as a more palatable alternative to the four-track vision the rail authority had initially proposed."
-------------------------------------

Please tell me what "blended" means. The high speed trains will be using the old CalTrain tracks on the SF peninsula? Is that possible?
The same trains which will run at 200 miles per hour down the valley on new tracks? Furthermore, if these high speed trains run regularly from SF to San Jose, all the street crossings must be changed to keep traffic and trains separate...i.e. grade crossings. So the plan is to build grade crossings for the old tracks, and then eventually, as has always been implied, add the needed set of tracks for the high speed trains. And of course rebuild all the grade crossings?
Or make the grade crossings large enough for 4 tracks to begin with. Imagine this mess at every street crossing the tracks!

How blended? Or do they mean running shuttle trains down the peninsula to San Jose, then changing to board the new High Speed Train? (a reasonable alternative) Then say so!

Otherwise, I don't believe you can run these super fast machines on the old tracks, and alternate high speed trains and commuter trains all day long!

No one has said outright that they mean to run these new "bullet" trains on the old tracks, or what kind of grade crossings are envisioned. They just say it will be blended. How blended?
I wish someone would explain

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